[Feature] WinAppDriver integration

[andrisi]

Maybe it's a silly idea, but how about adding support for testing Windows apps? You are starting to add Android support, perhaps it's similar - from a strategical standpoint, not technically - so you could give it a thought. There is another excellent but mostly dead (or very ill) Microsoft project, WinAppDriver. You could somehow join forces, make that leaner and meaner and integrate it into the Playwright world... Thanks for considering, and looking forward for any feedback.

[andrisi]

Perhaps the Windows Automation API could be a target too, skipping WinAppDriver - it's not clear what does that use behind the scenes. It's not particularly fast unfortunately. The main aim of my question is if you'd consider to bring the elegance of Playwright to Windows app testing.

[andrisi]

...I see you list https://accessibilityinsights.io/ as a project using Playwright - something closely related to WinAppDriver.

[ghost]

I am developing a test system to test a proprietary product that contains a combination of React Apps, RESTful API's, and WPF applications. I wrote a POC using SpecFlow, Appium and Selenium and I can test everything I need to test, but the same old problems crop up, like flakiness, timing issues, stale elements, etc. I tried Playwright this morning and I like its features and stability, I think Playwright can replace my Selenium layer to test React apps. Is Playwright capable of testing anything other than web apps? Like, RESTful API's? WPF (XAML) applications? Maybe these are out of scope?

[andrisi]

@aslushnikov any response would be greatly apreciated, even if you think this is a non-feasable or bad idea. WinAppDriver is another MS product, and I imagine you're in a better position to get a status on that than average outside developers. They seem to have abandoned the project which is actually a recommeded tool for its purpose by MS. FYI: microsoft/WinAppDriver#1550 & https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/testingspot-blog/winappdriver-and-desktop-ui-test-automation/ba-p/1124543

[andrisi]

...any feedback would be apreciated @zhengjitf @pavelfeldman @aslushnikov - even if not integrating, just finding out what's going on there, with a tool recommended in MS docs, but actually a dead one.

[aslushnikov]

Hey @andrisi, this is out of scope for the Playwright project, so I have to close this.

[kmturley]

It appears that someone may have got it to work here:
https://ttcglobal.com/what-we-think/blog/playwright-selenium-desktop-application-automation-testing